Womb Not A Haven For The Babies Of Women Who Drink

February 08, 1990|By Joan Beck.

Diane Pfannenstiel, 29, told Laramie, Wyo., police in early January she wanted her husband charged with battering her. In the hospital where her injuries were treated, a blood test showed she had a blood alcohol level of 0.1, evidence of intoxication.

Pfannenstiel was also four months` pregnant. She already had given birth to a child mentally and physically damaged by fetal alcohol syndrome because of her drinking. And two months earlier, a judge had ordered her to stop using alcohol during her current pregnancy.

Pfannenstiel was then charged with felony child abuse. The case hit the media fan. Feminists, pro-abortion forces and civil rights activists jumped to defend the mother. Last week a judge dismissed the case, saying there was no evidence the unborn baby had been harmed. Besides, as Pfannenstiel`s lawyer noted, the state`s abuse laws don`t cover fetuses.

What isn`t so easy to dismiss are the injuries Pfannenstiel may already have done to her child.

Alcohol in a pregnant woman`s blood crosses the placenta into her baby`s body, where it can cause malformations during the first three months of prenatal life and growth retardation and brain damage all during pregnancy. Fetal alcohol syndrome can include permanent abnormalities of brain and body, mental retardation, behavior disabilities, facial abnormalities, eye and heart problems and small physical size. Lesser degrees of damage are called fetal alcohol effect.

What`s ironic is that Pfannenstiel could seek-and get-police protection from an abusive husband. If she were to inflict permanent brain damage and other injuries on a child, she could be arrested and jailed and lose custody of him. She could be arrested for drunk driving, even if she hadn`t harmed anyone.

But she is legally free to do permanent harm to her unborn baby.

Pfannenstiel`s defenders emphasize that a woman has an absolute right to control her own body. Any other ruling is illegal sex discrimination and impinges on the constitutional right to abortion, they say.

But fetal alcohol syndrome isn`t abortion. Its victims can`t be defined away as insensate clumps of tissue and conveniently discarded with the surgical trash. They may live a normal lifespan, some of them in institutions, others putting in their time in school learning little, perhaps wracked with seizures, with little chance of becoming independent adults, never even able to understand why they are so afflicted.

It is a terrible price to pay for a woman`s right to drink as much as she chooses.

(There`s no accurate count of how many babies are born with fetal alcohol syndrome or fetal alcohol effect. How badly harmed a child is depends on when and how much alcohol his mother drank during pregnancy and, probably, on poorly understood genetic susceptibilities and other factors. Blacks, Hispanics and, particularly, Native Americans seem more likely to have affected children than whites with similar drinking patterns. But white women are more likely to drink.

(To be safe, many physicians now urge pregnant women not to drink anything alcoholic all during pregnancy, although it`s not likely a rare single drink will hurt an unborn child and even though some heavy drinkers do have infants who seem unhurt.)

Drinking mothers aren`t the only ones driving judges and prosecutors to test the limits of the law to try to save endangered children. Several cases in recent months have involved pregnant women using crack cocaine. A few judges have tried to jail drug-abusing women to prevent their drug use. Because charges of fetal abuse haven`t worked, attempts have been made to charge women with delivering illegal drugs to a minor during the minute or two between birth and the cutting of the the umbilical cord.

Children damaged before birth by cocaine are a new and rapidly growing national disaster. As many as 11 percent of newborns-25 percent in some urban hospitals-show evidence of exposure to illegal drugs. Prenatal drug exposure can cause prematurity, malformations, neurologic problems and learning and behavior difficulties. Ongoing studies of such youngsters show that many of the problems persist for years, even in children who get expert care.

Isn`t there something sensible-and legal-that can be done to protect children before they are so badly and permanently hurt and before they become an enormously costly and tragic burden to society?

Health care experts generally back only two answers: education and supportive rehabilitation aimed at helping pregnant women control their addiction and develop the skills and attitudes necessary to mother their children adequately. Fear of arrest or jail would only drive women away from the medical care they need, according to those who know the problem best.

But efforts to warn about drugs and alcohol aren`t reaching millions of women or the women are too self-indulgent (or troubled) to resist the temptations. Many drug and alcohol treatment centers won`t take pregnant women. Even if it is available, treatment often doesn`t work and relapses are heartbreakingly common. Even if it`s successful, the help may come too late to prevent harm to the unborn child.

Try explaining that to a damaged youngster who can`t even cope with 1st grade.